ITANAGAR, Aug 7: The state unit of the North East Petroleum Mazdoor Union (NEPMU) will join the nationwide bandh/agitation announced by 10 central trade unions (CTU) on 9 August to protest the policies of the government.
The 10 unions are the INTUC, the AITUC, the HMS, the CITU, the AIUTUC, the TUCC, the SEWA, the AICCTU, the LPF and the UTUC.
They placed a charter of demands before President Ram Nath Kovind to direct the central and state governments to adequately compensate the dependents of migrant workers who lost their lives due to the sudden lockdown effected from the midnight of 25 March, and to provide free ration to all non-income tax-paying people for the next six months, irrespective of whether they hold any ration card or not.
Their other demands include “to pay every non-income tax paying person Rs 7500 per month for the next six months and pension of Rs 3000 per month linked to cost of living to all above 60 years of age; to issue smart I-card to all the workers, to provide a corpus of Rs 10000 crores – a revolving annual fund for implementing social security schemes; to withdraw the move for corporatization of railway production units and handing over 109 railway routes to private sector and privatization of railway stations; to cancel the privatization of public sector enterprises and services, including state transport, LIC, banks, insurance, coal, BPCL, Air India, airports, telecom, ports and docks and municipal services, etc; to put on hold any labour law amendments through codification of all labour laws into four codes; to convene the Indian labour conference immediately; to increase budgetary allocation for effective implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, increase job allocation for 200 days per annum, and extend a similar scheme to urban areas also to address the issue of unemployment.”
“The daily wage should be enhanced from Rs 202 to Rs 500 and a drive should be launched to recover loans from willful defaulters by using criminal prosecution,” they said.
